1. Field of the Invention
This invention is generally directed to wireless digital communication systems. More particularly, the invention is directed to a code division multiple access (CDMA) receiver having a continuously adjustable bandwidth phase-locked loop for accurately determining the carrier frequency of a received signal.
2. Description of Related Art
Over the last decade consumers have become accustomed to the convenience of wireless communication systems. This has resulted in a tremendous increase in the demand for wireless telephones, wireless data transmission and wireless access to the World Wide Web. Since the amount of available RF spectrum is fixed, the need to utilize the RF spectrum more efficiently has become paramount.
CDMA communication systems have shown promise in the effort to provide more efficient utilization of the RF spectrum, particularly Broadband Code Division Multiple Access(trademark) or (B-CDMA(trademark)) communication systems. B-CDMA(trademark) communication systems permit many communications to be transmitted over the same bandwidth, thereby greatly increasing the capacity of the RF spectrum. In a B-CDMA(trademark) communication system, an information signal at the transmitter is mixed with a pseudorandom xe2x80x9cspreading codexe2x80x9d which spreads the information signal across the entire communicating bandwidth. The spread signal is upconverted to an RF signal for transmission. A receiver, having the same pseudorandom spreading code, receives the transmitted RF signal and mixes the received signal with an RF sinusoidal signal generated at the receiver by a first-stage local oscillator (LO) to downconvert the spread spectrum signal. The spreaded information signal is subsequently mixed with the pseudorandom spreading code, which has also been locally generated, to obtain the original information signal.
In order to detect the information embedded in a received signal, a receiver must know the exact pseudorandom spreading code that was used to spread the signal. All signals which are not encoded with the pseudorandum code of the receiver appear as background noise to the receiver. Accordingly, as the number of users that are communicating within the operating range of a particular base station increases, the amount of background noise also increases, making it difficult for receivers to properly detect and receive signals. The transmitter may increase the power of the transmitted signal, but this will increase the noise as seen by other receivers. Therefore, increasing the signal-to-noise ratio of a received signal without requiring a corresponding increase in the transmission power of the signal is desirable.
One way to increase the signal-to-noise ratio of a received signal is to ensure that the first stage local oscillator (LO) at the receiver is at the same frequency as the received RF carrier signal. If there is a slight frequency offset, the offset will manifest itself in the baseband section of the receiver as a phase error on the decoded QPSK symbol, resulting in a degradation of the quality of the communication.
Accordingly, it is critical to properly detect the frequency of the received RF carrier signal in order to optimize the quality of the received signal.
The continuously adjusted-bandwidth phase-locked loop (PLL) of the present invention is used by a B-CDMA(trademark) receiver to correct for any deviation, or offset, that may exist between the received radio frequency (RF) carrier signal and the frequency of the first stage LO that converts the received RF carrier signal to an intermediate frequency (IF). The PLL in the receiver includes a filter with an adjustable bandwidth. A wider bandwidth is used during initial acquisition of the received signal. After the PLL has acquired the received carrier signal using the wider bandwidth, the bandwidth of the filter is gradually narrowed to provide a low steady-state error. Accordingly, it is an object of the invention to provide an improved CDMA receiver which corrects for any offset that may exist between the received RF carrier signal and the frequency of the first stage LO.
Other objects and advantages will become apparent to those skilled in the art after reading the detailed description of a presently preferred embodiment.